Photographs
by Hermonthis
Summary: Stork/Starling - 50 themes and 50 sentences for the Merbian Pilot and the Interceptor.


A/N: Written for livejournal's 1sentence challenge community. Fifty sentences for fifty themes based on a singular pairing, but I took extensive liberties with the "one sentence" restriction. Lyrics for each subsection belongs to Sheryl Crow's song, "If it makes you happy."

Bonus: There's a Firefly reference in here somewhere.

* * *

**Photographs**_  
( a stork/starling love story)_

.

_"We've been a far, far way from here… and everything in between." (part one)  
_

**One**  
It was almost factual, there was only one true love of his life, but when he looked at Starling, he felt a kindred spirit in her he couldn't ignore; a low intense heat, like an element on a gas burner – the persistent feeling of being constantly watched and doing as much as you can until your time runs out.

**Cool**  
Her skin was always hot, a sign of the human blood that ran through her arteries, and for a woman who could never find a place to belong (not that she wanted to), the coolness of his amphibious skin soothed the fever in her bones and made her think otherwise.

**Bother**  
Starling bluntly asked him to reveal her greatest flaw: he replied with a single word - "Everything."

**Motion**  
She sat on the bench, wasting time as she stared at the wall; he stood in the light of the doorway, not brave enough to come in.

**Blur**  
The first photograph he had of her was taken by accident; he was trying to capture Piper in the midst of attacking Finn and the Interceptor got caught in the background – later he would wonder who that woman was with the light purple hair and the sad, sad face.

**Drive**  
He requested she closed her eyes – he took each of her wrists and gently moved them over the dashboard of the airship – and described his world to her.

**Naked**  
At first she didn't understand his vigilance and paranoia, he was a Storm Hawk, he was a soldier - but as she talked to him more, the layers peeled off and she slowly acclimated to the change in his demeanor (or was it hers?).

**King**  
It was the way he carried himself, how he prepared for confrontation whether it be from bacteria to Sky Sharks to Talons; his neurotic tendency to prevent and avoid life-threatening diseases, and yet take the chance and the risk to save her.

**Young**  
"You're only in your twenties," he told her when she admitted she felt old and obscure. She replied, "Stork. So are you."

**Vision**  
Stork didn't enjoy believing in definitive things such as destiny and fate, he preferred to view the world in terms of benefits and consequences; for example, _the Condor_ was a benefit and so were the Storm Hawks, but Starling? He wasn't quite sure which category she belonged to yet.

**Book**  
Despite the heavy lock of hair that hung before his eyes, Stork looked at Starling and asked her why she wouldn't write the chronicles of the former Interceptors; she pulled away violently although they weren't touching and stated the memories were too hard to handle for a guilty woman like her.

**Gentle**  
"I'll be careful," he whispered, a promise unto her as his long, green fingers removed the metal plating of her armour in the blissful dark. "I'm not going to break your heart."

**Last**  
She was his first kiss; he wasn't hers.

**Stop**  
She left messages in Morse Code so he always had a way to find her.

* * *

_"You listen to Coltrane, derail your own train. Well, who hasn't been there before?" (part two)_

.

**Wait**  
He hoped she knew there was always _the Condor_ to come back to – even if it wasn't her home, she would always be welcome here.

**Power**  
"Stork?" she hollered into the dark, her footsteps echoed on the bridge and the Merb came out of the bathroom, almost naked naught for the towel around his hips, and yelled at the general population, "Okay guys! Who broke the electrical unit again?!"

**Change**  
They were old souls, somewhat weary, and if she believed in reincarnation she might have believed they were friends in a past life; it was only a shame she had to meet him so late into this one.

**Sudden**  
When the carrier pilot was in a particularly morose and melancholy mood, he would think of Starling and how her existence was the slight waver of distinction between the words 'endangered' and 'extinct species.'

**God**  
The first time she realized she might learn how to love the Merb, she started to question the higher powers whether this was another cruel joke to hurt her once more.

**Hold**  
One night, while she was away from _the Condor_, she dreamt someone kissed her on the soft rose-coloured skin of her cheek (whereas the rough texture of his lips contrasted with the gentle brush of his hair); Starling shocked herself awake and clutched at the front of her suit in despair.

**Fool**  
Once she retrieved the shield of the Interceptors from Repton, she knelt over the scratched metal and prayed for the lives of her lost squadron.

**Shadow**  
"I need to find the Raptors." Her cold, calculating eyes penetrated his yellow ones and he shivered. "I need to avenge my comrades."

**Command**  
With Stork, she didn't have to be the lonesome wolf anymore, the sole surviving Interceptor who looked for revenge and justice; she could just be a girl, holding a boy who happened to love her.

**Time**  
Mortality was always on their minds: he spoke of it like it was an irksome cloud hanging above his shoulder, she dreamt of it like it was a shroud over her heart.

**Torn**  
He didn't ask about the gashes against her ribs or the obvious pain in her right kneecap; he wasn't a doctor by any means but he always did his best to patch her up again.

**History**  
Time crept up on them like fingers crawling up their shoulders; they felt the weight of their appropriate ages carry them down as they kissed, and they both sank into the welcoming embrace of the night.

* * *

_"If It makes you happy, it can't be that bad. If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?" (part three)  
_

.

**Sing**  
"Do starlings sing?" Aerrow asked Piper one morning. The blue-haired girl shook her head and replied, "Maybe. I always thought their voices sound like a cry."

**Ghost**  
"I'll search for you," he wanted to tell her late one night in bed, but she was sleeping and the peaceful rest on her pale face averted him from doing so. "I'll wait for you."

**Thousand**  
A thousand pictures, a hundred days of photos to capture the woman he knew - someday she would never come back from one of her solitary missions; Stork gathered up the paper, the negatives and the camera, and shoved them all into a single shoebox.

**Need**  
"You need to eat more," he observed one afternoon during a visit from the Interceptor, "You need to eat _a lot more._"

**Never**  
Little white lies, little tears in the fabric of his self-preserving armour made by the Interceptor whenever she hailed _the Condor_ through the radio and told Aerrow she was doing all right.

**Eye**  
An eye for an eye makes the world go blind – and a fake heart will never replace the void already there.

**Attention**  
"You're doing this to me just to feel alive. You couldn't stand going to hell all by yourself."

**Harm**  
"If you could change the past, would you?" (Yes. Of course I would.)

**Wash**  
"Um, thank you for the plastic dinosaurs," she spluttered incoherently and wondered what in the world a respectable carrier pilot would do with such toys.

**Wrong**  
It wasn't the difference in ages, nor was it their differing squadrons that cemented the rift between them; it was their perspectives on fate that brought them together and split them apart – he wanted her to live. She didn't.

**Precious**  
He was serious, it was no laughing matter! The first girl in his life was _the Condor_, next was his mother, and the third was Starling. (She didn't mind so much, she thought it was cute.)

**Fortune**  
"I know a Fortune Teller," Piper spoke up, not meaning to interrupt their conversation, "She could tell you where to find Repton."

* * *

_"Well, okay. We get along. So what if right now everything's wrong?" (part four)_

.

**Safe**  
"If my Merbian family decides to take me back, would you come with me?"

**Mad**  
He didn't expect her to be all right with her choices in the past, he didn't push her to do anything she didn't want to do despite safer alternatives; it was his way of preserving her sanity, her need for revenge and closure, and she hated it – he was too accepting of her flaws.

**Learn**  
He made her see what she couldn't see, made her learn that she was still _alive_ – Stork gently held the wrist of her left hand, placed it on her bare shoulder and said it was her imperfections that made her beautiful.

**Hunger**  
Despite her small frame, she was a big eater – it amused him, because it made Starling more real, more human, especially when she had mayonnaise dotted on the edge of her lips while she chomped on her turkey sandwich.

**Child**  
"Do you have family?" she asked, "Do you miss them?" (He wished she had said, "Do you want a family? Do you want them?")

**Hide**  
On some days, he felt like hiding from the world, maybe give up _the Condor_ if his actions secured the future of the Interceptor.

**Goodbye**  
"This isn't the time," she whispered into his mouth and believed in it wholeheartedly; he didn't believe her but didn't have the courage to tell her why.

**Soul**  
Starling closed her fatigued eyes, spread her arms and hoped Stork would fall into them.

**Picture**  
"You keep it," she told him and pushed the small watercolour portrait back into his trembling fingers, "You keep Piper's work safe for me."

**Wall**  
His fingers slid up and down the metal, his watery yellow eyes blinked in the harsh light of the bedroom and in his mind, counted the number of days Starling spent on _the Condor._

**Now**  
Stork wasn't going to let her go, but if he held Starling back from this mission it would also mean losing her forevermore.

**Believe**  
"How do you think this war will end?" Starling voice was warm and low and for once, not overwhelmed by thoughts of mortality. He answered her with optimism. "With the Storm Hawks - with me and you."


End file.
